


when the fields are fresh and green

by amosanguis



Series: Episode & Movie Tags/AUs [55]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Deaths of Children, Episode: s01e12 The Conscience of the King, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Tarsus IV, some disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Jim sings as he pulls the children close – he sings to drown out the distant sound of phaser fire and screams, he sings about a lover seeking a woman across the ocean wide.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Kevin Riley
Series: Episode & Movie Tags/AUs [55]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/272215
Comments: 2
Kudos: 115





	when the fields are fresh and green

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title from "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen"  
> \--Was originally going to be a third chapter for [Enterprising Young Men](https://archiveofourown.org/works/986923/chapters/1946790) but the tone is so far away from what that original fic was, I felt it needed to be its own fic. (Yes, six years later. This is just how I am.) All you need to know about that fic is that Kirk and Spock, a couple, adopt all their baby crew members.  
> \--Blends TOS and AOS and some of my own headcanon; ignores STID and STB.  
> \--A write-and-post so please forgive any mistakes

-z-

Jim sings as he pulls the children close – he sings to drown out the distant sound of phaser fire and screams, he sings about a lover seeking a woman across the ocean wide.

-

Before Sulu, before Chekov, before Spock and Scotty and Uhura and even before Bones – there had been Kevin Riley.

-

Jim is thirteen and crawling through a field of rotted grains – half of it burning, half of it so flooded with blood the mud of it clung, sticky and cloying, to him. He doesn’t scream and he doesn’t cry and he doesn’t beg. He just sets his jaw and stays low, lets the smoke of the fires hide him from the guards.

-

The _Enterprise_ is three years into the five when Jim takes the PADD from his yeoman and reads from the list of names of officers who’ll be joining his crew at the next star base.

_Read, A.J., Reed, K.U., Redding, U.D., Reigel, R.M., Riley, K.T.—_

Jim stops.

_Riley, K.T._

-

Jim sneaks enough for six, then for five, then for four.

He keeps them moving and keeps them quiet.

(Quiet except for certain nights, when the moons are hidden and there’s no light and Jim gathers all the remaining children to him, hugging them tight as he sings that gentle song about a girl named Kathleen, a lover across an ocean, and Time itself the villain. And the littlest of them, Kevin Thomas Riley, his eyes starving-bright, commits every word of the song to memory.)

-

Jim meets his newest crew in the transporter room, out of the ordinary, yes, but Jim thinks he can be forgiven.

He greets them all by name, shakes their hands.

Riley is at the back and he smiles when he finally stands in front of Jim, and his eyes are excited-bright and he offers Jim a salute and then sticks his hand out for Jim to shake—

-

There’s nothing left to steal.

Either the guards have gotten wise or the food had well and truly run out.

“You didn’t have to,” Kevin whispers, the default noise level whenever they talk, sounding far older than any four-year-old should, as he stacks one rock atop another. “I know they didn’t call your name.”

Jim hands Riley another rock. “And how do you know that?”

“My dad was the only James they called.”

(When next they move, Jim remembers to scatter the rocks.)

-

—Jim pulls him into a hug because protocol and formalities be damned. Then he pulls back and he says, making a point to be loud, “It’s good to see you, kid.”

And Kevin can’t seem to find his words just yet, because he’s just nodding and they’re laughing.

-

“Hang in there, okay, kid?” Jim whispers, voice raspy as he passes over the last of their water. “Hang in there for me.”

Kevin is barely able to focus on him, but he still manages something of a half-smirk, before his eyes droop closed and he curls in closer to Jim.

The others whimper in their sleep and Jim closes his eyes against their gaunt faces.

When he hears that distant rumbling of a starship engine, he thinks it’s a dream.

-

They sit in the recreation room and Spock plays his lyre and together, Jim and Kevin sing, _I’ll take you home again, Kathleen, across the ocean wild and wide—_

-z-

End.


End file.
